Imagine my surprise when I planned to take some holiday time later this month to go to Festival du Voyageur in Winnipeg and discovered the wonderful young girl who looked after Sherman, my 17-year-old black cat, last time I was away on vacation in September 2010, was not available this time. Why? Because she is going to be away at the same with her family. Where? Why, Festival du Voyageur, of course.
Hannah was a wonderful pet sitter for Sherman last time, while Jeanette and me were happily traversing Québec City, the Charlevoix and the Gaspésie in Québec. She even, with her parent's permission, took Sherman out to her home at Paint Lake for most of the time so he'd have more company than a daily visit to be fed and watered. Given the living room ceiling had partially collapsed and my former landlord decided that my vacation would be as good a time as any to finally gut the living room and begin the much needed repair work, Sherman was no doubt gratified to be at the lake for a couple of weeks.
What to do this time though? It was a bit of a conundrum. Cats are for the most part pretty independent low- maintenance creatures - not to mention aloof when they choose to be, much like his owner, I confess - although with Sherman's black-as-coal, face he's even more inscrutable than most cats because you can't really make out the expressions on it often times, which is why I call him the "sphinx."
I couldn't recall ever seeing a classified ad here in our own paper for a "pet sitter" but it seemed worth a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I believe, is the expression.
My phone here at the office rang off the hook, it seemed, for the next three days after the ad ran a single time on Wednesday, Feb. 1. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit. It didn't quite ring off the hook. But I did get nine responses, which astounded me. I tried to spend a few minutes talking with everyone who called, even though I had found a pet sitter right off the bat. It seemed everyone had their own reasons for being interested in helping out.
One person just liked black cats; simple enough. Another had a 20-year-old cat and had noticed the reference in the classified ad "to a senior citizen-age black neutered cat." Someone else had two cats they have had to leave temporarily behind in New Brunswick this winter after moving to Thompson for a job. They miss their cats and thought it would be nice to spend time with a cat here until they can get their own cats back this spring. And so on.
Once again, I find it is both surprising and humbling to be reminded me of the goodness of ordinary Thompsonites - ordinary everyday people.
